Recursive

Category: Uncategorised

  • Puros Panas


    Puros Panas by Ram!.

    Nicely done, and something I’ve been wanting to try myself.

  • Antec Fantastic

    I recently got myself a secondhand Aria SFF case from Antec.

    Unfortunately I found that the card-reader which is built into the front was missing, and the eject button on the optical drive fascia plate had been broken and was MIA.
    I contacted Antec to see if it would be possible to get a replacement drive cover, expecting to have to buy it and other bits and pieces in a bundle.

    Amazingly, I got a short, but very sweet, email back saying that they would send me replacements free of charge!
    They even apologetically mentioned that it would be shipped from the States, so may take a while.

    Just a couple of days later they arrived in perfect condition.

    UPDATE: I’ve realised that I don’t have the cables to attach the front audio and card-reader to the mobo, so am going to see if they can help again.
    UPDATE 2: (Aug 18) I’ve finally got round to asking, let’s see how it goes…

  • Cars Review

    Cars was a real visual treat.

    If you can look past the cartoony style of the characters in the film (all vehicles of some kind, even the wildlife) you’ll see that an enormous amount of effort has been put into the look of the film.
    Genuinely photo-realistic, make that ‘actually-in-front-of-you-realistic’, backdrops and scenery, complemented by great little visual details make this real eye candy.
    There are many who, I’m sure, won’t fully appreciate the graphics – not because they’re not impressive, but because there’s much more to the film.

    Yes, the jokes are mostly for the younger ones, with occasional slap-stick, but there are a couple of great lines for the adults which I won’t spoil here.

    Great casting too: Owen Wilson as the lead, ‘guest’ spots from Michael Keaton, Jeremy Clarkson, Michael Schumacher, and a Pixar perennial John Ratzenberger supply very fitting voices.

    My criticisms lie mostly with the script – at 2 hours and 1 minute (5 more minutes than in the US), it’s a long film – especially given that it’s a PG rated film. There were a couple of flat spots, too deep for a ‘cartoon’ and boring for the youngsters.

    I was happily surprised and I’ll definitely recommend this film to those who aren’t sure.
    [tags]Cars,Film,Movie,Review,Opinion[/tags]

  • Kenya: Safari: Elephants at Dawn

    This is the first in a drip feed of photos from my Kenyan holiday.

    Elephants at DawnElephants at Dawn Hosted on Zooomr

  • SUWiki

    Regulars to the SCC will probably be interested to learn of a new wiki for SketchUp.

    It already has a fair bit of content, including a little from me, so if you need to know anything about SketchUp have a look at SUWiki.

  • Cars Behaving Badly (Site Proposal)

    I have been bouncing an idea around my head (and off a couple of other people’s) and would like to open it up to your thoughts, reactions and suggestions.

    Although I drive very little (I work at home), I see a lot of bad driving. A lot of the time it’s simply inconsiderate, sometimes it’s downright rude, other times it’s downright dangerous.
    I have also seen many vehicles in dangerous physical conditions, and sometimes with illegal modifications.

    Instead of whinging to the gf, I figured it would be much more useful to make a note of these things.
    Making these notes could be useful in discovering who is to blame, and what could be done to prevent the problems in the future.

    Some of you may be thinking ‘Goody Two-Shoes‘ etc, but there are too many people who complain about something and then do nothing to make it better. (Think Honda advert – Hate Something, Change Something, Make Something Betterrrr!)

    The features I’ve considered for the site include:

    • Note of the:
      • Crime / Misdeed / etc
      • Vehicle Make & Model
      • Vehicle Registration
      • Driver description
        • Age / Sex
      • Location
        • Using Google Maps API
      • Rating of the ‘crime’
        • which would also show which crimes annoy us the most

    All Web2.0’ified. All written in swanky OO PHP etc etc.
    It would be anonymous, but limited to one report per Reg per IP per day. (Or something)

    So, what are your reactions? Would you be concerned (for me) about litigation over slander etc? Would you submit reports? Would the police (or other authorities) be interested?

  • Paper Cut Pre-launch

    I have pre-launched my first proper theme, Paper Cut.

    Why ‘pre-launch’? Because it’s not quite finished and I wanted some comments from you all to help improve it.
    I really would like to hear any thoughts you have, so don’t be shy!

  • Net Neutrality Threatened

    Update: As reported by the BBC:

    “US politicians have rejected attempts to enshrine the principle of net neutrality in legislation.”

    Google themselves are asking for people to petition against a bill going through US courts:

    In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

    Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.

    Hopefully, the proposal won’t go anywhere, but if it does it threatens to have wide reaching impacts including over this side of the pond.

    If it does, then what sort of prices are going to be charged, and how will content be rated. Will individual sites have to lobby to be included in the high priority lanes, will they have to pay?
    ISPs are already the winners on the ‘net, shouldn’t we be looking for ways to increase availability to remote users rather than limited those who are already limited?

  • WMD by G-gnome

    The final instalment: WMD Part III by G-gnome at bit-tech.net

    An absolutely stunning bit of modding. G-gnome has outdone himself, and everyone else.

  • Google SketchUp (free)

    Google (who recently bought SketchUp) have split it into two products.
    There is now the free version ‘Google SketchUp‘, and SketchUp Pro.

    The more important part of the news release, as far as I’m concerned, is the 3D Warehouse, a user-contributed collection of SU components – essentially a direct competitor to my SketchUp Components Collection.

    I’m glad there is now a free version, but of course have some reservation over the launch of the 3D Warehouse.
    This is the first time that Google has directly affect me personally. (Chances are that the SCC will suffer)